


whittle my bones to an edge

by F0XW1LD



Category: Sleepaway (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Athlete Playbook, Character Study, F/F, Horror, Summer Camp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F0XW1LD/pseuds/F0XW1LD
Summary: Ashley Park is headed to camp:or -how a counselor learns to be self-destructive.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Camp Howling Ground (Sleepaway 2020 campaign)





	whittle my bones to an edge

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mention of parents fighting.

Ashley is 9 and headed to camp for the first time.

Eun-Min holds her hand as they walk through the camp gates. Her older brother has spent two whole years filling her head with his exploits. Tales of exploring the forest, of camaraderie, of friendships built around campfires under twinkling stars.

_(Ashley takes all of his stories with a grain of salt; she yearns for it, but it’s been a while since she could believe in magic.)_

Eun-Min laughs as he sees someone across the lawn. He waves enthusiastically with his entire body. For one terrible second Ashley thinks he’ll leave her behind to talk to his friends, but he runs across the field with his hand firmly grasped in hers. She runs behind him.

Her brother drags her to a group of four other kids who seem to also have just arrived. They turn to him and start whooping.

“Knights of the HG, reunited once more!” one of them shouts.

“Like they could stop us!” Eun-Min hollers back. “We convene again, sirs!”

They unsheath invisible swords from their sides and pretend to touch blades in the middle. They laugh and start hugging each other.

“Who’s this, Eun?” one of them asks. Ashley hides behind her brother’s leg.

Eun-Min hooks his arm into hers and drags her out. “Guys, this is my very best friend in the whole wide world, my little sister Ashley. She’s seriously the coolest new pup at HG. Ask her anything about dinosaurs or, I dunno, westerns, and she’ll tell you everything you’d ever want to know.”

Four pairs of eyes fix on her immediately. They seem curious, not mean, and the tension eases out of her shoulders.

“Dinos and westerns, huh?” the other kid says, smiling. “You’ll fit right in. Welcome to Camp Howling Ground! Put’er there, kiddo.”

She shakes his hand.

~*~

Ashley is 10 and she's a proud pup.

She howls louder than everyone else during call and response. She runs across the field with reckless abandon. She searches every inch of the forest with her best friends, marveling at how they could chart out the area three times during the summer and get three different maps. She swims across the lake, even faster than her older brother. She runs around the field searching for the calico that Eun-Min swears he saw just the other sunset. She roasts marshmallows five at a time and doesn’t cry when two of them are burnt to a crisp. She eats the burnt ones, too.

She lays awake at night, listening to her fellow campers settling in to sleep around her. She senses the magic settling into her bones. It feels like home.

She takes a deep breath and smiles.

This camp, she thinks, is better than Terabithia. 

~*~

Ashley is 11 and her parents argue a lot. She doesn't like to think about it, but it's hard to miss when their screaming matches wake her up in the middle of the night. Her parents never acknowledge them in the light of day, pretending that everything is alright.

She wishes that she can pretend like that too.

She throws herself into school work and sports. If she can get an athletic scholarship… in… 7 more years, maybe her parents won’t need to worry about money.

She sneaks into Eun-Min’s room one night when she hears things being thrown. He throws back the blanket and lets her curl up against him. She flinches at the loudest crashes and he hugs her close to him.

“Hey,” he whispers into her ear. “It’ll be okay.”

“How?” she whispers back.

“It’s going to be you and me all the way to the end of the world,” he whispers. “I’ve always got your back. Got it?”

“Got it,” she says. It feels like a promise.

She settles closer and falls asleep.

~*~

Ashley is 12 and survival class lets up thirty minutes early. Everyone starts heading back to camp, but she spots the mischievous look in her best friend’s eye and hangs back. In moments, the creek is empty, and Juliette and Ashley have free time together.

“What do you wanna do?” Juliette asks her. 

Ashley shrugs. “Whatever you wanna do, right?”

Juliette rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, Ash, can you make a single decision once in your life?”

Ashley shoves Juliette’s shoulder, ignoring the heat rising up inside her. She likes it when Juliette calls her Ash, like the nickname is a secret between the two. “Whatever, like you’re not going to just veto anything I suggest and drag us somewhere else.”

Juliette raises an eyebrow. “We’d never know, since you’re discussing some make believe version of Ash where you’re somehow decisive.”

Ashley gasps. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Juliette sticks her tongue out at her, and they start roughhousing in the creek. They chase each other, splashing water this way and that. They throw mud at each other and shriek like banshees.

Finally, they stand there as they try to catch their breath and call a truce. Juliette smiles brightly at Ashley and walks over to the creek.

_Oh no, I think I hecked up_ , Ashley thinks to herself as she watches her best friend try to get mud off her clothes and give up.

Ashley waits a few moments for her heartbeat to get back to normal, but it never does. Finally, she walks up to Juliette. “Wanna make some mud castles?”

Juliette’s eyes sparkle. “Yeah!”

The smallest details sparkle like magic in Ashley’s mind - a lingering glance, a brilliant grin, the enthusiasm that tinges Juliette's voice as she rambles about how to properly show European castle architecture in their mud constructions.

She takes these bits of magic and hides it away - locks them in the deepest part of her heart, where only she can see.

When it’s quiet, she lets the magic out.

It warms her.

~*~

Ash is 13 and a wolf for the first time. And when she get s t o cam p 

i t s ee m s l ik e

some t h i n g

i s

w r o n

~*~

Ash is 14 and a wolf for the first time. She's nervous and excited and happy. She has spent _months_ yearning for this weird little haven tucked in the wilderness, has dreamt of being under the stars again, of feeling safe. At long last, she’s back.

A barrage of emotions assault her as she takes in the camp. She expects the relief, the joy, the homecoming. But she is taken aback by a weird thrum of dread that surrounds her. It pulses, a half-step behind her heartbeat, relentless and unforgiving.

Juliette asks her to go swimming before the launch party will officially start the camp for the summer, and Ash agrees. Maybe the chill of the water will knock her out of her funk.

They swim and splash each other. More friends join them as they arrive until there’s a proper Howling Ground naval battle going on.

Everyone’s in a great mood as they get out of the lake and dry up.

Ash is quiet. No one notices.

The rest of the day passes in a flash. It’s nice to go through some routine.

She sits up in her bunk and listens to the soft snores of the kids in the cabin. It's soothing, but for the first time it’s not enough to quiet her anxieties. She can't help but feel like a chunk of her heart is missing.

Times like this, she wishes she weren't an only child.

Tears stream down her face.

She mourns, though she can’t figure out why.

**Author's Note:**

> My friends and I have been enjoying a tabletop roleplaying game called Sleepaway, where we play summer camp counselors protecting the grounds from an everpresent cryptid that looms over everything. Without discussing it, all of us started writing about our characters and the events of the game and it's blossomed into this precious! collection!
> 
> I love this character to death. I love these kids to death.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
